


Dreams Unravelling

by orphan_account



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Eating Disorders, F/M, Gen, Self-Destruction, Self-Harm
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-08-18
Updated: 2012-11-12
Packaged: 2017-11-12 10:01:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,024
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/489635
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What happens when Amy and Rory figure out that the Doctor is his own worst enemy?</p><p>Inspired by this quote:<br/>Stephen Moffat said, "The Dream Lord is all the Doctor's negativity, all the vicious stuff he keeps hidden away, torturing him and torturing his friends. You always think of the Doctor as having a lot of bile under the slab somewhere but there it is, incarnated in a bow tie."</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> “I know who you are.”  
> “Of course you don’t—“  
> “Of course I do. There’s only one person in the universe who hates me as much as you do.”

            In the days and weeks to come, Amy and Rory would spend minutes—no, _hours_ —thinking about the Dream Lord. Of course they’d encountered some terrible creatures in their time with the Doctor. To be honest, they thought none could hate the Doctor more than the Daleks, but apparently they were wrong.

            The things the Doctor said that day would haunt their dreams following the Dream Lord ordeal. It had never occurred to them that the Doctor was anything other than who he appeared to be. They never thought that he could be filled with _so much darkness_ , so of course learning the truth startled them. And it scared them.

            The Doctor—their Doctor—with all the running and yelling and daring couldn’t possibly be as unhappy as the Dream Lord showed them he was. He was all smiles and quirks and bowties. He couldn’t possibly be so unhappy.

~

            A couple weeks after the incident, Amy had a revelation. If no one hated the Doctor as much as the Dream Lord, and the Doctor was the Dream Lord, and oh! She realized. She never knew that no being in the entire universe hated the Doctor as much as he hated himself.

            Then she needed to know why, but she couldn’t—she couldn’t— ask the Doctor himself. She couldn’t bring herself to make the Doctor explain because, as much as she hated to admit it, she was vulnerable to his subject changes when she wanted to be.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “What do you do around here to stave off the self-harm?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it's taking me so long to write this fic. I'm still not sure where it's going to end up, and I have to be mentally prepared to work on it because it's so triggering for me. I can't NOT write it though, so the updates are just going to be super slow. Again, super sorry about that.

When it came down to it, Rory was the one who initiated the conversation. He just couldn’t get over the Doctor mentioning self-harm so casually. He approached Amy, apprehensive at best, to discuss the Doctor’s worrisome comments.

“Amy, um, you know when we met the Dream Lord?” Amy turned to him, immediately falling concerned—she knew what this was about.

She responded quietly, “Yes, I remember.”

“Well, you know I’m a nurse, I’ve been trained to listen for certain things.” Amy nodded. “And some of the things I heard from—from the Doctor concerned me.”

“I’ve been thinking about what he said,” she half-whispered. “He said—he said that no one hated him as much as the Dream Lord, but then he said that he was the Dream Lord.”

Rory nodded, “And he mentioned self-harm so casually. I’m just—I’d wondered if you’d noticed it too. One of us should talk to him.”

Amy looked nervous, “I keep wanting to talk to him, but I know I’d let myself be distracted. Maybe—maybe you could talk to him? You’re better at staying on track when it’s really serious.”

Rory looked at Amy and saw the tears glistening in her eyes. He loved her, and she loved the Doctor, so he just couldn’t say no. “Of course I’ll talk to him.”

~

“Doctor? I, um, I need to talk to you.”

The Doctor didn’t look up from the TARDIS’s console. “Well, what is it, Rory? We’ve got times to visit and aliens to see.”

“It’s about something you said, when we were with the Dream Lord.” The Doctor, sensing that this was important, looked at Rory. “It’s just—you said some things that worried Amy and me.” The Doctor seemed uncomfortable with the turn the conversation was taking, but stayed quiet. In retrospect, the Doctor’s silence should have put Rory on edge, but he kept going. “You, um, you mentioned self-harm once, like it was nothing to worry about. And you said—you said no one hated you as much as the Dream Lord did, but then you said that you were the Dream Lord. Just, I want you to know that you can—you can talk to me and Amy when you’re upset. We really care about you, you know.”

The Doctor nodded apprehensively before asking, “Do you know how I came to meet Amy? I mean, I landed in her garden, that much you both know, but do you know how I ended up in her garden?” Rory shook his head and settled in for the explanation.

~

“My life is, well, it’s a long story. It’s a 900 year long story, actually, but that’s beside the point. What you need to know is that I am responsible for the end of my people, the Time Lords, as well as the end of the Daleks. I’m the reason my planet _no longer exists_. I suppose I can start my story there… You see, I left my world and the world of the Daleks. I had destroyed them…


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “So that was the Dream Lord then? Those little specks?”  
> “No, no, no! Sorry, wasn’t it obvious? The Dream Lord was me! Psychic pollen. It’s a mind parasite. It feeds on everything dark in you, gives it a voice, turns it against you. I’m 907, got a lot to go on.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ooh, two chapters up in one day! I went on a writing binge today... *burp* Excuse me. It was glorious. But that's all I've got now. I suppose you'll get another, like, four chapters the next time I update...in 5 months or something like that.
> 
> Leave reviews, comments, whatever, please, yeah? Give me feedback that I can use for future chapters. I know I'm gonna need it. Like, where would you like this story to go? I have a vague idea, but it's not a lot to go on. I want to know what you guys like. ^_^  
> OH! Sorry, I almost forgot to say: this is the chapter where it starts to get triggering. I don't know, I find the whole story triggering, but that's because I knew I was going to get to this point. But this is where self-harm starts being mentioned more concretely. Just so y'all know.

_I met this girl—no, woman—named Rose Tyler. She was 19 years old when we met, and we travelled together for two years. I had a different face then, you know. But we met Daleks, and they were bent on destroying Satellite Five with me inside. I couldn’t—I couldn’t let Rose die like that, so I had the TARDIS take her home. She, well, she looked into the Heart of the TARDIS, and she came back to Satellite Five, to me. She, well, she’s the reason I didn’t die there. She used the powers the TARDIS gave her to destroy all of the Daleks that threatened us. But the power, it was killing her. So I took that power away from her—I absorbed it into myself and I died._

_She, well, she didn’t know what to do with my new face when I regenerated. It took a while, but she started to trust me again. And you know what happened? We fell in love. I—well, I loved her before, but certain things kept me from finding out that she returned that love. In the end, you know what happened? I, well, I lost her. She refused to leave me again and, um, she was pulled into an alternate universe and trapped there when the cracks sealed. I found one of the last cracks and met her there—I burned up a star just to say goodbye. She told me she loved me then, and I lost the connection to her before I could tell her that I loved her too._

_I had another companion after her, Martha Jones. She was even a real doctor—well, medical student. I was still very torn up about Rose. Even then I knew there was no way for me to get over her. I was so torn up about Rose that I never noticed Martha falling in love with me—and I hurt her. She was my best friend, and I hurt her so much. I hurt her so much that she couldn’t bear it anymore and left._

_After her I had another companion, Donna Noble. She, um, she was good for me. She and I never felt anything besides pure friendship for each other. She was so abrasive, and I think I needed that at the time. I travelled with her for a while before we dealt with the Daleks. She, um, she touched a hand that I’d lost and it caused a biological meta-crisis. She became part-Doctor, and my hand grew into a part-Doctor/part-Donna. I think I forgot to say—the barrier between this universe and the universe that Rose was trapped in was weak, so Rose came through to help us. Anyway, part-Doctor part of Donna was killing her, so I erased all her memories and sent her home to save her. I made Rose go back to the alternate universe, too. I sent the other me with her, knowing that the other me loved her as much as I did. I thought it would be better for her…the other me was part-human and could live and age and die._

_I lost all my companions—all the companions that I had cared for so deeply. First I lost Rose, then I lost Martha, then I lost Donna. I lost everything, including my will to live. But I couldn’t just kill myself—I couldn’t. And when I was finally dying, I realized I wasn’t ready to go—no matter how much pain I was in. I had set the TARDIS to die, and it was dying, but I didn’t, so I steered it the best I could, and it landed in a garden._

_So the events that led to Amy and I meeting… well, they were nearly all bad. I lost everything and everyone. They would have been alright if I had never met them, barring the events that led to us meeting. It was all my fault that they suffered, and I just couldn’t stop myself from becoming involved in their lives. I ruined everything for them, and in the end I couldn’t stop because I met a little girl who was afraid of a crack in her wall, and I’ve been causing her pain ever since._

                                                                                     

~

 

            The Doctor ended his story with tears rolling down his face. Rory didn’t know what to say, so he didn’t say anything for a while. When he collected his thoughts, though, he broke the silence that had followed the Doctor’s story.

            “I, um, I know you don’t like talking about your past, so I want to thank you for trusting me with that, I really do. I know you don’t believe me—not yet—but it’s not your fault that other people hurt.”

            “Rory, you don’t understand. You can’t because I’ve hurt you too—you and Amy—and you don’t feel it. All this darkness inside of me killed you. Amy realized it—and I don’t know if she remembers it now—realizing that if I couldn’t save you then I had no point. She said it, she did. ‘Save him. You save everyone. You always do. That’s what you do.’ And I couldn’t—I couldn’t save you. I’m so sorry, I wish I could have. I wanted to—I really did. And when she grasped that I couldn’t save you she said the truest words. She said, ‘Then what is the point of you?’ And I knew—I _knew_ that I had no point, but no one had ever told me so before,” the Doctor was absolutely sobbing now, and Rory didn’t know what to do. So he did what he knew best.

            “Doctor, I have to ask you something. Do you—do you ever hurt yourself?” Rory knew now wasn’t the best time, but the Doctor was being open, so this was his best chance at getting an honest answer. The Doctor looked at Rory, and then Rory knew then that the Doctor’s answer would scare him. There was a beat, and then… the Doctor nodded. For a moment, Rory didn’t know what to do, but then he remembered his training and knew what he had to do.

            “Doctor, I need to know how you hurt yourself. I know you don’t want to talk about it, but I really need to know.” The Doctor seemed skeptical, but slowly he took off his coat and rolled up his sleeves. Rory gasped; he had never seen so much pain evidenced in one person. The Doctor’s arms were covered in scars, and his wrists were so small. Rory reached out and wrapped his thumb and forefinger around the Doctor’s wrist. He couldn’t help but notice how much his fingers overlapped each other.

            Sensing that the Doctor was uncomfortable, he let go. He could see that the Doctor had stopped crying and now seemed frustrated. Realizing that he wasn’t going to get any more out of the Doctor now, he opened his mouth to speak, but the Doctor cut him off. As he guessed, the Doctor was frustrated.

            “Look, I didn’t really want you to know about all this. That’s why I kept it hidden for so long, so if you could just… go…”

            Rory wasn’t about to let this go, but he would respect the Doctor’s wishes for now. “We’re not done talking about this, but I will give you some space. I want you to know you can always talk to me when you’re hurting, and it may not always feel like it, but Amy loves you. She wants to be there for you.”

            With that said, Rory walked away.


End file.
